Thanks for your responses!
Does anyone have any input on the WTC7 part of my OP? I think that's the most interesting part for me anyway

Originally posted by micpsi


Your explanation for Bush does not hold up. Bush said that he saw the first plane hit the North Tower on TV and thought that the pilot was not a good one, or something like that. But the Naudet brothers' film was shown on TV the day AFTER 9/11, so that could NOT have been his response if he had seen it then because he would have known by then that the first crash was not due to pilot error! You have therefore failed to come to grips with the problem. I believe that Bush, being a rather stupid man, confused seeing the second crash for the first one.

Bush DID see the first plane hit the north tower on TV. And who wouldn't think the pilot was not a good one? That was my first thought when I first heard it on the radio.

But more importantly, you completely missed what I said.

He SAW the TV. Not the plane. When you watch a TV, you say you SAW it. The only thing he did differently was he left out the word "that". He was watching TV. The news announces that a plane hit the north tower. They didn't show it, they reported it and showed the damage. He SAW that.

It's like I watched TV and saw them announce that you got a promotion at your job. Then I go to you and say "I saw you got a promotion". It doesn't mean that I literally saw you yourself get the promotion. But when referring to TV, we use the term "saw". Now a more proper way to say it would be "I saw THAT you got a promotion". But not everyone talks like that, least of all someone like Bush.

I think you're missing the point snoopy, we're not talking about how he said it.

He just couldn't have seen the TV of the plane hitting the tower when he was at the school because the video hadn't come out yet. No one had seen it.

Originally posted by malganis
I think you're missing the point snoopy, we're not talking about how he said it.

No, I think Snoopy got it dead right. Bush's remarks in what, I believe, was an unscripted Q&A session with members of the public have been widely misinterpreted, not for the first time, because he does not always phrase his answers very carefully.

As Snoopy said, insert the word "that" into Bush's comment and suddenly it makes perfect sense.

"I saw a plane hit the building" becomes " I saw THAT a plane hit the building"

or, if you prefer insert "had" and "I saw a plane hit the building" becomes I saw a plane HAD hit the building".

Bush said he was sitting outside a classroom when he saw the video of the first plane hit. Whatever words he uses to describe it, it is BS because the video hadn't been released at that point. It wasn't broadcast until later on, so how could he have seen it?

Add to that the fact that there wasn't even a TV outside the classroom anyway and it becomes utter BS.

Ok maybe he got his words mixed up, but tbh there is a big difference between "I saw an airplane hit the tower"
and what he could have said in your case
"someone told me that an airplane had hit the tower"

[edit on 21/3/2007 by malganis]

Originally posted by malganis
I think you're missing the point snoopy, we're not talking about how he said it.

He just couldn't have seen the TV of the plane hitting the tower when he was at the school because the video hadn't come out yet. No one had seen it.

WOW! just wow. I don't know how many ways I can explain this. Why do people keep thinking that I am saying he literally saw footage of the actual plane.

OK, the plane hits the building.

The news stations find out.

The news stations have a reporter at a desk reporting that a plane hit the WTC.

Bush sees in his limo TV this footage showing a reporter sitting at her desk or whereever claiming tha a plane hit the WTC and seeing video footage of the damage that followed (NOT THE PLANE HITTING THE BUILDING).

Bus ****SEES**** the news report on TV. He ***WATCHES*** the news report of the plane hitting the building.

And thus he tells us that he saw a plane hit the WTC. he didn't mean that he saw the footage that literally showed the actual plane hitting the building. He saw the news. In his way of speaking he simply left out the word "that" when he said "I saw a plane hit the WTC" instead of saying "I saw THAT a plane hit the WTC".

-----------

Does this clear things up at all? No one is claiming the video came out yet. No one is claiming he saw that video.

Originally posted by malganis

Ok maybe he got his words mixed up, but tbh there is a big difference between "I saw an airplane hit the tower"
and what he could have said in your case
"someone told me that an airplane had hit the tower"

[edit on 21/3/2007 by malganis]

So if you saw a news report about the incident, would you tell people "Someone told me that an airplane hit the tower"? I don't think I know anybody who would say that. When referring to having seen something on TV, you use the word "saw". If it was the radio, you would say "I heard that a plant hit the tower".

By the logic being used here, one could claim that Bush was claiming to have been there in person. But he wasn't. He said he saw the first plane hit the tower. Couldn't we make an argument that Bush is lying because he claimed to have been there? No of course not, because we know he doesn't mean he was actually there. Just as we know that to say "saw" doesn't mean he actually saw the footage that showed the plane itself.

He watched the TV, he saw the news report about the first plane hitting the tower. Thus he saw the the first plane hit the tower. If he had inserted the word "that" in there, it would make more sense, but unfortunately he jsut isn't that articulate of a speaker and it's very common in southern places to leave out those kind of words.

You have a point, but I don't see how you guys can be so sure that you know what he meant. You say it as if you've actually talked to him about it?

And for the record if I see a news report I tell people "apparently a plane hit a tower".

I'd never say "I saw a plane hit a tower", because I blatantly didn't. If someone asked me what it looked like or what happened, i'd look stupid because I wouldn't know what to say, because I didn't actually see it.

I know Bush's speech can be a bit crappy sometimes but come on...

Originally posted by malganis
I know Bush's speech can be a bit crappy sometimes but come on...

I can certainly see how the comment could be made this way in an unrehearsed answer to a question where Bush is thinking (?) as he talks. In these situations sentence construction often becomes disjointed even for the most accomplished public speakers amongst us.

The alternative is that a man who is credible enough to be elected to high office and be at the very least a part of one of the most complex and dastardly plots of all time is dumb enough to blurt out that he saw something which he couldn't have watched.

Now, it's always good sport to regard GWB as a bit of a plank but that is simply not realistic if we are being rational about it. If you really believe in a Government conspiracy to murder thousands of innocents then the powers behind that are not so stupid as to allow an imbecile to put their lives and fortunes at risk.

[edit on 21-3-2007 by timeless test]

Originally posted by malganis
You have a point, but I don't see how you guys can be so sure that you know what he meant. You say it as if you've actually talked to him about it?

And for the record if I see a news report I tell people "apparently a plane hit a tower".

I'd never say "I saw a plane hit a tower", because I blatantly didn't. If someone asked me what it looked like or what happened, i'd look stupid because I wouldn't know what to say, because I didn't actually see it.

I know Bush's speech can be a bit crappy sometimes but come on...

Well no one can know exactly what he was thinking. But that's what all this is about, assumption. He could have meant "red clay makes for bad mud pies" but it came out wrong.

I used to live in Georgia, so phrases like he used are common in every day speech. I can't imagine Texas is much different since his speech always includes the same mannerisms and dialect. For example, If I got an email announcing a co-worker got a promotion. One would approach them and say "I saw you got a promotion". That doesn't mean you litereally saw them actually get the promotion. It's just a manner of speaking.

Again, while I don't know what he was thinking we have two options:

1) He was using his usual texas dialect as per usual.

2) He was telling people he was behind the biggest caper ever devised by mankind so as to incriminate himself and hamper the whole caper. This would also mean he was acting out of character and instead of using his everyday dialect, speaking exact percise words. It's also not accidental since he said it twice.

Seeing as #2 is pretty hard to swallow and completely out of character, the laws of probability are way in favor of situation #1. And that's before weighing in the fact that we are making assumptions. Benefit of doubt highly favors #1.

I could very well be wrong, but I will side with probability.

You have good points and that's fair enough.

I still think that what he said was a bit dodgy though, obviously no one really knows so you could be right.

But "I saw you got a promotion" is still different to saying "I saw a plane hit the tower"